Reflecting on the Gifts of Living

Last night the half moon increased the gold in its light as it moved across the darkening, then, black clear sky. This morning fog rests momentarily on the ridge It dips down into the valley as though licking a spoonful of sweet before it dissolves.

I watch and understand transition, embrace and release as I dip and sip this moving change of form, this transformation of matter to air. I appreciate the gift in not knowing when that final sip will come.

Yesterday Marlene and I took the train from San Rafael to Santa Rosa. It’s called a Smart train which is ironic since it’s path is too short to be of much use to commuters who sit stopped on the freeway as the train moves along passing tidal ponds, pools, and marsh filled with parent and baby birds.

It’s a landscape of aliveness, and aliveness sparks inside the train too, as separate lives unite in moving along past hills, trees, parking lots, businesses, and homes. As seniors we have special pricing and seats, and I appreciate that as I sit erect, representing youth in maturity, as garbed in my years, I could be wearing diamonds, silk, velvet, and lace, rather than sandals, sweater and pants. My spine stacks erect, wisdom represented in the grace of unknowing aligned.

We exit the train and walk, turning this way and that, to a restaurant Marlene found on-line when she Googled patio seating. We arrive to learn the outside seating is full.

Well, there is an advantage to the look of disappointment on faces our age so we are quickly ushered to a private garden where leaves are brushed off a small table to be replaced with cloth napkins, water, tableware, and bread. Our attentive waiter brings us all we need, including a finale of cannoli as delicate and airy as the fog I view now.

At the table, Marlene hands me a copy of the poem “What the Living Do” by Marie Howe. She offers it as support for my brother’s passing. I wait to read it until I get home as I prefer not to show emotion in public.